Knowing Your Future
by whateverdudezb
Summary: "Traveling to the past? Heh, it's actually not as bad as everyone says it is, so long as you follow certain restrictions you'll be fine. Now, traveling to the future? That is a whole other ball game. Because now you're dealing with inevitability."


Disclaimer: this story is nonprofit and the author has no ownership over the characters or setting.

**Author's Note: chapter 2 is already uploaded, but it is currently only on Fimfiction at the moment. You can find the link in my profile.**

Knowing Your Future

"Wait," said Twilight evenly, her princess-minted wings giving off slight twitches of barely restrained irritation for the stallion in front of her, "are you telling me, that you conducted this _whole_ thing," Twilight gestured her purple hoof broadly to the happenings that were going on in the interior of her library, "this _whole _thing, just because you got a letter?"

After straightening his tie, Dr. Whooves put a hoof to the underside of his brown-coated chin in thought and contemplated on whether or not if Twilight's rather brief accusation was an accurate, if not an entirely content-filled, description of what lead up to this event. After a few seconds of silent contemplation and fur scratching, Dr. Whooves smiled brightly as the answer came to him.

"Yep," he said cheerfully.

"Hmm," uttered Twilight, who, of course, took the Doctor's answer and responded in the manner she deemed most appropriate.

With a loud _THUNK _she slammed her fore-hooves onto the library's wooden floorboard and gave the Doctor her fiercest stare.

"WHEN WE GET OUT OF HERE, YOU AND WHOEVER SENT THAT LETTER ARE _SO_ BANISHED!" she screamed from her imprisoned position inside of a magical barrier, a fate shared with her friends who each had their own personal prison. These violet, bubble-shaped imprisonments were located at each corner of the hexagonal shape ritual that was drawn on the floor. Said ritual was made up of archaic runes that glowed a pure white and was filled with so much raw arcane energy that bolts of magical lightning would lash out of seemingly nowhere.

"Banished!?" Dr. Whooves looked positively aghast at that statement, "aren't you overreacting a bit? I mean it's not like I saved you from an alien werewolf or anything."

Twilight's expression became momentarily befuddled at the Doctor's words, "Why would you be banished for something like that?" The Doctor opened his muzzle to answer, but he was interrupted by Twilight, "Wait, never mind, that's not important. You're forcibly imprisoning royalty and five Equestrian citizens against their will, you are getting banished no matter what you say."

"Forget banishment! He'll be lucky to still be alive once I'm done pulverizing him!"

Looking over, Twilight saw Rainbow Dash fiercely trying to escape her own magical imprisonment. Banging her cyan hooves against the barrier, magical energy riveted through the bubble at each point Dash's hooves struck it.

Applejack was taking a less direct approach than Dash was. Instead of bashing against the barrier itself, Applejack was using her superior strength to break the floorboards under her in an attempt to dig herself out under the barrier. A futile attempt as the magical barrier adaptively lengthened its size to fill out the space that every broken floorboard left. A fact that Applejack seemed to notice.

"Ah, horse-apples!" she cursed.

Great, so not only were they stuck, but Twilight will have to call for a carpenter once this was all over.

She was _so_ looking forward to the sound of banging hammers in her _library_.

Fluttershy on the other hoof was simply curled up in a ball and shivering slightly in fear, not that Twilight could blame her, the poor mare. She didn't have the strength or agility that Applejack and Rainbow Dash had respectively, so bashing her way out was a moot point considering _they_ can't even get out through that method. She also didn't have any of her animal friends nearby to bail her out. Which was a shame, because Twilight could think of a great activity that Mr. Bear and the Doctor could play.

She didn't want to give anything away, but she will say that it involves Mr. Bear's claws and the Doctor's hindquarters.

The only thing that Fluttershy could possibly do was give the Doctor her infamous Stare. If she could accomplish that, then she could convince the Doctor to free them. Unfortunately, the Doctor, the insufferable genius that he is, has discovered a way to make the Stare not affect him. A feat only previously accomplished by a powerful spirit of chaos.

"I've got to say, I've never been in a tree-library before, or is it library-tree? Libtree? A treebrary" the Doctor blathered on as he pondered over the bookshelves, "Hah! Treebrary, what a delightfully funny little word."

He simply wasn't looking at her.

…Not the most impressive strategy, but hey, it works.

Still, Fluttershy was keeping a close eye on him in case he ever crosses eyes with her, so Twilight couldn't say that she wasn't doing anything.

Rarity was poised in a dignified posture inside her own barrier. Not bothering to bash her way out for the same reason that Fluttershy isn't, one of the few options she could do would be to use her own magic in an attempt to escape. But she didn't bother to try that option either because of the simple fact that she saw what happened when Twilight attempted to do so.

Channeling as much magical energy into her horn, Twilight had released a magical beam in an attempt to escape her prison. The reward for her efforts was the barrier bouncing the beam back at Twilight's face.

So yeah, considering that Twilight is an alicorn, not to mention one of the most magically gifted ponies that she's ever met, Rarity wasn't in any rush to use her own magic to escape. Instead, always having a talented eye for detail, Rarity was scanning the barriers, the room, and the Doctor for literally anything that could be exploited for their advantage.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was…

Twilight did a double-take.

Where the buck did Pinkie Pie get an ax!? Why does she even have one!?

"I" _SLASH _"WILL" _SLASH_ "NOT" _SLASH_ "MISS"_ SLASH _"MR. ROYAL GUARD'S" _SLASH _" BIRTHDAY PARTY!" _SLASHITY-SLASH-SLASH_

Oh, that explains it... _kind of_. Still, Twilight should probably take care of that ax before Pinkie hurts somepony with it.

Well, no matter, so long as the barriers held, everypony should be safe.

Back to the matter at hoof, Twilight focused on the Doctor.

"So tell me Doctor, who was it exactly that sent you the letter?"

"Me," he answered.

Twilight blinked, "I'm sorry?"

Dr. Whooves held up a letter, "This letter was sent to me, by _me_ from the future."

Silence.

Everyone was silent. Rainbow stopped thrashing herself against her barrier, Applejack stopped trying to dig her way to freedom, Fluttershy stopped trembling in fear, Rarity stopped looking for some kind of advantage, and even Pinke stopped wailing her ax around.

They all stopped to silently stare at the mad Doctor.

Mouth agape, Twilight silently uttered, "You're mad."

The Doctor smiled, _SMILED!_

"That's what everyone keeps telling me," he said joyfully as though it was some sort of achievement worth celebrating for.

"Alright, forget banishment," Twilight announced, "you're obviously not well in the head, so it's Luna's Lunacy Asylum for you!"

The Doctor scrunched up his face in confusion, "I'm not familiar with that establishment."

"It's also more commonly known as _**THE MOON!**_" yelled Twilight as she unleashed a magical beam on the barrier to accentuate her anger.

With said barrier bouncing the beam back to hit Twilight in the muzzle, "Ah, buck! Not again!" she cursedly exclaimed, bringing up a hoof to tend the bruised snout

"Hey Twilight!" called out Rainbow Dash, "can't you just teleport out of these things?"

Blinking in realization, Twilight channeled the necessary amount of magical energy into her horn and with a _bzzzap,_ teleported a few feet away from the ritual.

"Hah!" laughed Twilight mockingly as she pointed a hoof at the Doctor.

…which hit the violet magical barrier that had teleported with her.

With a near-silent _shlick, _the barrier slid back into place at one of the ritual's corners, and Twilight's smug face became one of subdued surprise at the realization.

"…Huh."

AppleJack facehooved, "Darn varmint really thought of everythin' didn' he?"

"Tell me about it," remarked Rarity, as she tried to maintain her elegant posture as magical lightning danced around her, "he even got rid of poor Spikey-wikey."

_Meanwhile at Canterlot, in Celestia's private study._

Princess Celestia has been around.

As a royal, near-all-powerful goddess that has lived for a thousand years (much more than that actually, but a mare's age is no business for any rude historian to know), she has seen quite a few things. From upstart nobles to a deity-like being of chaos who thought that he was "all that" and everything in between.

So, no. When a baby, purple dragon appeared before her in a flash of green flames and landed on her desk while she was signing some important document, she wasn't that surprised.

Using her magic, Celestia threw said document into the trash bin near her desk on account that she had accidently punched a hole through it with her quill.

To reiterate her previous statement: she wasn't _that_ surprised.

"Ugh... where am I?" groaned the little dragon as he held his claws up to his head to help sway off his dizziness. After a moment, he finally shook off the dizziness and looked up in surprise to see the pony that made up one-half of Equestria's diarchy.

"Hello Spike," she greeted the little dragon, and with a slight shuffle of her left wing she silently messaged the royal guard behind Spike to stop pointing his spear at the unexpected intruder, er, guest.

"…Hi… Celestia…" Spike returned the greeting, albeit in a daze.

"I didn't know that your DragonFire could transport living beings," said Princess Celestia curiously.

"Neither did I," he replied

Well on the bright side, at least Celestia finally figured out why she had found a bunch of torn up pieces of changling corpses in her room after the changling invasion. Using his DragonFire during a fight, Spike had been transporting them to her room piece-by-piece during the invasion and …wait, no that doesn't make sense. The changlings would have been transported to herself when she was being hanged upside down from the ceiling, not to her room, and she was pretty certain that Spike's flames didn't tear apart the changlings. And that still doesn't explain why the changling corpses weren't blasted out of her balcony window when Cadence and Shining Armor used that love spell to repel the invasion.

Drat! That mystery is still left unsolved, which was a shame because she really wanted to figure that one out. Finding a bunch of unexplained corpses in your room can really draw out the paranoia in anyone's psyche, no matter how (possibly) ancient you are.

"Hey, I don't mean to be a bother, but could you send me back to Twilight's library the same way you send her letters?" requested Spike.

Princess Celestia thought about it for a second before replying with, "Considering the fact that those letters arrive through your stomach, I wouldn't recommend it."

Spike's face cringed at that, "Eww, yeah, good call," he then let out a dejected sigh, "great, now I'm gonna miss Twilight open that locked chest."

Celestia's eye's widened just ever so slightly in surprise, "The one from the Tree of Harmony? Twilight has found a way to open it?"

"Actually, it was that doctor that you sent to help Twilight figure it out," answered Spike, "He's got her, Rarity, and everyone else doing some kind of ritual that's supposed to summon the keys for that thing. Seems a bit weird to me, but Twilight said he's got credentials so I guess that means he knows what he's doing, or whatever."

Celestia blinked. Doctor? She didn't send anypony to help Twilight.

"I was about to send you a letter that would tell you all of this," Spike continued his explanation, "but something weird happened. Right when I was using my flames, a great big burst of wind appeared out of nowhere and blew the flames into me. Weird, huh?"

"Quite," agreed Celestia, "Now Spike, what was this doctor's name?"

_Back at Twilight's library._

"You know what I find curious?" announced Dr. Whooves as he shoved a mechanical fan into a much-too-small duffel bag, "In comes a prestigious doctor who says that he's going to help you open this mysterious chest that you have, through a summoning ritual of all things, and yet not a single one of you questions why he also brought in a giant mechanical fan. Not one of you questioned it. I mean, I could understand why no pony would look inside a big blue box in the middle of a street, but a giant fan in a treebrary? Right when we were about to do said ritual too? Surely that would have raised some eyebrows, wouldn't it?"

Because his back was turned to them, the Doctor couldn't see the hate-filled stares that were drilling into the back of his skull.

Twilight was about to reply in a very unprincess-like manner, but stopped herself when she noticed that the frequency of the magical lightning dancing around her and her friends seemed to be increasing in fervor.

Also, they were now floating.

"So, uh, what _exactly_ is this ritual going to do?" asked Twilight nervously. The magical bubbles that she and her friends were imprisoned in had now started to slowly rotate in the air around the perimeter of the ritual markings.

The Doctor turned to them and smiled, "Oh, I'd be happy to tell you."

They were starting to spin faster.

"But unfortunately," the Doctor continued, "I've been informed to not tell you."

And faster.

"Yeah, by _you!_" yelled Twilight angrily.

And faster.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" questioned the Doctor, "_Not_ listen to my future-self? That seems very unwise."

So fast now.

"HOLD UP!" yelled Pinkie Pie to which both the Doctor and Twilight stopped their argument, and even their magical imprisonments seemed to have stopped in mid-spin at Pinkie's command. She then focused her stare at the Doctor and pointed a pink hoof at him.

"Are you even a real doctor?" she asked inquisitively, oblivious to the facehooving that was going on around her.

"Yes," he answered immediately, "I have a doctorate in quantum mechanics, so I'm technically a doctor."

"Oh! Okay, then!" smiled Pinkie.

The Doctor returned the smile, "Well, if that's all then, I'll see you all again in a few seconds."

And then the magical bubbles containing the six mares converged into a singular point in the middle of the ritual and they disappeared in a flash of bright light.

And the library was silent with its sole occupant.

Dr. Whooves waited with a smile.

And waited...

And continued to wait.

Eventually, that smile was gone.

A whole minute had passed and the library was still lacking the return of any of the mares.

The Doctor stared expressionlessly at the empty space above the ritual markings.

"Uh oh."

End Part One


End file.
